Newcrest Mining is being sued by a member of parliament over its Hidden Valley gold project in Papua New Guinea. The barely three month old mine has seen legal action being filed against it over flood damage to crops being grown in the region.
The Hidden Valley gold project is a joint venture equally owned by Newcrest mining and Harmony Gold Mining from South Africa. The joint venture is run by a company called Monrobe Mining which said that it will vigorously defend any legal action.
The writ has been filed by a local MP against Monrobe Mining says that mine related sediments in the Watut River have created a nuisance and seeks damages and injunctions against the Hidden Valley operations.
The two companies Newcrest and Harmony, have been already making voluntary compensation payments to the communities located along the Watut for flood damages caused to crops and gardens since the month of November.
Monrobe also made a statement regarding tailings saying that at Hidden Valley Mine all tailings from the processing of ore are stored permanently in an engineered Tailings Storage Facility. "No tailings are discharged from our site,” is the official line being touted.
The company said that the sediment which entered the Watut was from runoff from mine overburden and construction activities rather than from the mining process.